Well being and Human Providers Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is increasing his campaign to show again the clock on federal well being coverage.
Having undermined the authorities’s assist for childhood vaccines amid the worst measles outbreak in years, he’s now focusing on one other longstanding pillar of American public well being: water fluoridation.
HHS will convene a board of consultants to overview the federal authorities’s advice that communities fluoridate their water, the company introduced on Monday. The Environmental Safety Company is concurrently launching a overview of the science on fluoride’s well being results.
The top results of these inquiries appears to be a foregone conclusion: Kennedy advised the Related Press that he wished the federal government to cease recommending fluoridation. He has referred to as fluoride “industrial waste” and blamed it for an array of well being circumstances, from neurological injury in youngsters to bone most cancers.
Banning fluoride is an integral a part of Kennedy’s marketing campaign to Make America Wholesome Once more. The information of the opinions got here on the identical day he appeared in Salt Lake Metropolis to reward Utah for being the first state to formally ban water fluoridation.
”It is mindless to have it in our water provide,” Kennedy advised reporters. “I’m very, very pleased with this state for being the primary state to ban it, and I hope many extra will come.”
The complicated science on water fluoridation, briefly defined
Water fluoridation, which the US authorities has supported since 1950, has lengthy been thought of a significant public well being win. The Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention reported as just lately as final 12 months that, based mostly on the perfect out there proof, fluoride in water reduces tooth decay by 25 p.c for youngsters and adults. About three in 5 Individuals now drink fluoridated water from their group water system.
Issues about fluoridated water’s well being results have been round for many years, too, significantly amongst conspiracy-minded people like Kennedy. Like many conspiracies, it has some foundation in actuality — however the actuality is much extra nuanced than Kennedy’s new name for banning it outright would recommend.
As neuroscientist Celia Ford lined for Vox final 12 months, questions round fluoridated water started rising after the US Nationwide Toxicology Program said with “reasonable” confidence that publicity to elevated fluoride ranges might cut back IQ in youngsters.
That’s a discovering price taking severely — however solely in context. The elevated fluoride ranges that had been studied within the report had been above 1.5 milligrams per liter — greater than twice the present federal tips for a way a lot fluoride communities ought to add to their water. The measurement of the impact was additionally pretty small, amounting to 1 to 2 factors.
The actual concern is for the small minority of individuals, about 1.9 million, who stay close to a group water supply that already accommodates greater than that 1.5 milligrams per liter of naturally occurring fluoride. (These of us may need to think about a water filter, Ford wrote.)
As for Kennedy’s different claims, akin to fluoridated water’s supposed hyperlinks to most cancers, the CDC has mentioned research of most cancers in areas with excessive pure ranges of fluoride have discovered no connection.
The precise injury RFK Jr.’s campaign towards fluoride might do
Whereas Kennedy often is the US’s prime well being official, he doesn’t have the ultimate phrase on whether or not Individuals can entry fluoride to cut back the danger of cavities. States and localities management group water techniques that serve most Individuals. Hawaii, for example, has by no means authorised water fluoridation, although the follow will not be outright banned.
That may minimize each methods: Kennedy has mentioned he hopes different states and cities comply with Utah’s lead, and his assist might embolden some state and native officers to maneuver ahead with their very own bans. However he can’t change state legal guidelines on fluoridation; some states, California and Illinois amongst them, require cities of a sure measurement to fluoridate their water. They don’t appear more likely to take cues from Kennedy.
The excellent news is that even when Kennedy can efficiently encourage extra states to embrace his anti-science platform and take away fluoride from their water provide, the final word impact on individuals’s dental well being might in the end be restricted. One latest overview of the scientific literature famous that water fluoridation research carried out after 1975, when fluoride was launched in toothpastes, have discovered much less of an impact on tooth decay than earlier research had.
However even when the sensible impression of Kennedys’ campaign could also be marginal, it might probably nonetheless be influential: A plurality of Individuals, 41 p.c, mentioned in a January 2025 Ipsos ballot they didn’t know whether or not fluoride was dangerous and useful. Now the nation’s prime well being official is looking for it to be banned. And the impact of such a ban would fall disproportionately on the least advantaged — one in 4 youngsters dwelling under the federal poverty line expertise untreated tooth decay.
Mixed together with his actions towards vaccines, the concern stays that Kennedy’s reckless overhaul of longstanding public well being suggestions might undermine public belief in and assist for a variety of public well being efforts, some way more essential than water fluoridation.
